


we were star-crossed (and the stars were never on our side)

by scarletite



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adora dies when she falls in the Crystal Castle, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, F/F, Force Ghost Adora, season 1 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24641602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletite/pseuds/scarletite
Summary: Her tail lashes, still blown out twice its normal size. “Even now—after everything—why does it always come back to you?”Adora lets out a low, wounded sound. “We were made for each other.”“We destroyed each other.”-AU: In a world where your soulmate haunts you after they die, Catra deals with the aftermath of cutting Adora loose in the Crystal Castle.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 331





	we were star-crossed (and the stars were never on our side)

“Stop looking at me like that.”

Her eyes are deep, dark, like water at the bottom of a well. “Like what?”

“Like _that_ —” Catra hisses, tail fluffing involuntarily. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Adora curls her legs tighter to her body. “Not even if I tried.”

Emotions curdle at the back of her throat, war deep in her stomach—a churning, roiling mix that sits like cement. She feels sick. Has been sick twice already, with Adora’s sad blue eyes on her back. 

Catra swallows, ears pinned flat. “This isn’t fair.”

“Glimmer told me about this.” Adora shifts her weight. It doesn’t even crease the blankets. “She said it’s supposed to bring comfort, I think.”

And that, if nothing else, makes her laugh. It is high, squeaky, edged with grief that she can feel down to the tips of her toes. 

“Is this comfortable for you?” She grips a pillow in her hands, shreds it apart with her claws. Then, she throws it at Adora for good measure. “This is a mistake! It has to be.”

Adora peers at her over the bridge of her forearms. 

The pillow explodes against the wall behind her, stuffing cascading everywhere.

“I guess you finally got what you wanted.” Adora has never needed a sword to carve her apart, and the softness of her tone belies the blade she’s just slid between Catra’s ribcage. “I’m with the Horde now. With you. To stay.”

Catra lurches forward, claws slashing at her bedspread. “You think this is what I _wanted_?”

“You said that, before.” Adora gives her a smile—for a second, between one blink and the next, her teeth are stained with red. “That you didn’t want me. That me leaving was the best thing that ever happened to you. But, here I am.”

Her tail lashes, still blown out twice its normal size. “Even now—after everything—why does it always come back to you?”

Adora lets out a low, wounded sound. “We were made for each other.”

“We destroyed each other.” _I destroyed you._

“Why did you do it?”

The question turns her veins to ice. “I—”

“I guess I was naive, or gullible, or just plain _stupid_. I should’ve known better.” _Better than to trust you_ , Adora doesn’t say, but she doesn’t need to. “Did you even know? What it felt like?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“You left me to _die_.” Adora laughs, but it’s not a light sound; it’s deep, keening from somewhere inside of her. “I thought, just for a moment, that maybe we could go back. That we could be _us_. And I know you did too, but then—you left me. You let me go.”

“You left me first!”

The shout is explosive, tears blur her eyes.

For a long moment there is silence, only the low industrial hum of the Horde around them.

“I fell.”

Catra closes her eyes.

“I fell,” Adora repeats, voice thick. Her form wavers around the edges, pale and washed out, until she’s almost nothing. “I fell and fell and then…”

“Stop.”

“I thought it would be quicker, easier.” She makes a sound in the back of her throat, a wheezing, choking noise—like air leaving lungs, slowly, finally. “I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.”

She doesn’t want to hear it, she can’t, she won’t.

Growing up in the Fright Zone, she had nothing that was truly hers. Everything she had was scraped together, fought tooth and nail for. She’s always been the outcast, the unwanted. Nobody ever wanted her. Nobody ever chose her.

Nobody but Adora.

And now, she’s gone—because of Catra.

“We were soulmates.” Adora unfolds her legs, then, stares down at her own translucent palms like she’s never really seen them. “And you killed me.”

“I didn’t—”

“You let me fall.” 

She shakes her head. “I didn’t mean it.”

The thought is poisonous, strips her from the inside out, carving away all the shells and layers she’s built. 

Catra buries her face in her hands. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why?”

“You were everything, don’t you get it!” She sobs, rough and ugly now. “You were the only thing I ever had, the only thing that was ever mine! You were my world, Adora. You and me, against everyone else. We were going to change things around here. Make it so people didn’t have to grow up like we did.”

Adora looks positively stricken, and she moves further up the length of the bed. The mattress doesn’t dip or fold under her. She pauses in front of Catra, repeats, “Then why?”

“Because you left me, Adora. You left me here, you left me alone. What was I supposed to do without you?” Her voice breaks. “You were my life! And then you pulled it out from under me.”

“I never meant to hurt you.”

“That’s the worst part!” She wants to fight Adora, wants to punch her or push her away, but her hands melt straight through her. “You were so _noble_ and so _good_ , playing Princess. You fit right in with them. You forgot about me, like I never even mattered to you.”

“I _never_ forgot you.”

“I wanted to burn the world, just to spite you.” The admission is rough, makes her curl her tail around herself defensively; an admission she never intended to make. “I would have burned it to the ground. Carved it apart, just to see it devastate you.”

Adora reaches out, eyes shining with unshed tears. “When did we get so bad?”

“I wanted to hurt you. To make you feel the way I felt—weak, defeated, abandoned.” Catra looks up at her, at the hand that tries to touch her own but just passes through it. “But I never wanted this.”

The silence that passes it long, fraught, a battlefield all of its own.

“Tell my friends.” Adora’s hands press to the side of her own face. She’s crying, Catra realises. Desperately, but silently. “Tell Bow and Glimmer that I love them. That I’m sorry that I couldn’t make it home, that I left them alone. That I couldn’t protect them.”

She recoils. “Adora…”

“Please, Catra.” Her voice is thick. Her eyes churn like ocean water. “It’ll tear them apart, not knowing. If you can stomach doing anything for me as my—my last request, then this is it.”

She hugs her arms around herself.

“Please,” Adora repeats. “Please.”

And she’s exhausted—all the barbs and the blood and the bitterness they’ve shed for each other, since that day in Thaymor, the shrapnel surrounds her now. 

She’s never seen Adora beg for anything in her life.

Catra forces herself to breathe, even through the weight crushing her chest. “Okay.”

And it’s not joy, exactly, that flashes across Adora’s face. There is no joy in this scenario. Instead, there is nothing but relief. “Thank you, Catra.”

“Don’t.” She feels hatred, burning and curling in her veins; a seeping red haze around herself, boiling. “Don’t thank me. You can’t—”

“I don’t forgive you.” Adora says the words, like they’re supposed to soothe her, even as they cut her further open. She’s a bleeding, weeping thing, spilling across the floor. “But I’ll stay with you, Catra.” She smiles, soft and bitter and so, _so_ sad. “From now, until the end.”

They both know, she has no other choice—that is the joy, the _curse_ , of soulmates. From now until what lies beyond, into forever, and what that means for the chasm between them.

“I’m sorry,” she says, rough and ragged. “I’m _sorry_ , Adora.”

Adora just looks back at her, hair loose and free around her shoulders.

For an instant, her hair drips with red so thick that it’s almost black.

“Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ouch. This one hurt.


End file.
